Day by Day
by Daqueus
Summary: OoTP spoiler - Harry's grieveing process


Day by Day  
  
'Do you know how hard it is to carry on with this? I loved him as a father, a friend, and maybe something more. And now all I've got left is a stupid fucking mirror to remind me of what I no longer have. Why? Why did he have to die? Why have I been left alone again? Is it punishment? Have I done something so karmically wrong that I deserve all the shit that's been piled on me for the past fifteen years? I can't do this anymore. I'm too tired of everything.'  
  
Harry Potter wrote these words into his diary, as he sat hunched in a corner of his dorm at Hogwarts. He hadn't ventured out of his dorm for over two weeks, and Ron, Hermione and everyone else were becoming increasingly concerned for him. He'd even stopped taking meals.  
  
Dumbledore said it was part of the grieving process, after all, Sirius was as good as a father to Harry, one of the last tenuous links to his parents, and it had hit Harry hard. They just had to make sure the grief didn't make him lose sight of everything and that he would try and do something stupid. Like suicide. There was too much at stake for him to do such a thing.  
  
It wasn't that they were unfeeling, it's just they didn't want Voldemort to win through the back door, as it were. There was too much at stake.  
  
And when they did try and intervene and talk to him, empathise with him, he shouted, screamed and harangued them out of the room. Dumbledore was reminded of a certain young Slytherin 23 years ago who refused help and ended up in the Infirmary six months later when himself and Poppy had found the hovel he's holed himself up in to try and end his life. Yes, there were certainly the Slytherin aspects in Harry Potter.  
  
But what to do about it? He couldn't very well barge into his room and demand he snap out of it. He had to be coaxed and reassured that it was going to be OK. Although deep down in Dumbledore's heart he knew he could not offer him such platitudes such as a stop to the death of Harry's loved ones.  
  
He thought that maybe asking Severus to talk to the boy might help, although again he had a feeling that Harry didn't want to see anyone right now that reminded him of the Order, and especially ones that were so closely linked with Sirius. And that meant that Dumbledore was also in the exclusion zone.  
  
He remembered the angry words that came from Harry when he tried to talk with him  
  
"WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE SAVED HIM? WHY? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THIS GREAT ALL POWERFUL WIZARD AND YOU DID FUCK ALL TO SAVE HIM OR TO HELP! GET OUT!"  
  
And then he heard Harry weep through the door. He had never felt so old in all his years.  
  
'It's strange, I keep on expecting him to appear all the time. Like he's never really left. I mean, he only fell through a curtain right? It was only a curtain. So why didn't he appear from the other side? If it was only a curtain that he fell through why did he not reappear? Why did he have to end up dying after falling through a curtain? Why? It. Is. Not. Fair.'  
  
She wondered if it had all been in vain.  
  
That everything they had worked toward, without ever really understanding was all coming to a halt so soon.  
  
Fifteen. He's just fifteen and he's seen so much heartbreak and death to last him several lifetimes.  
  
Hermione Granger sat down heavily next to Ron in the Common Room and laid her head on his shoulder.  
  
"Do you think we should go check on him?" she asked tentatively. It seemed that everyone was super-sensitive to even the most banal of questions these days. The atmosphere was so tense she ended up having headaches nearly constantly.  
  
"What's the point? He'll only scream and yell at us again" Ron answered back.  
  
And she wondered if he had a point. Harry was a virtual recluse now. And what times she did see him were spent watching him gaze avidly at the mirror Sirius had left him, in complete silence. It unnerved her.  
  
Maybe he was going insane, and she realised that the more time spent on his own was only going to make it worse.  
  
"I'll go check on him" and she got off the couch toward the boy's dorms.  
  
Hermione climbed the stairs with an increasing feeling of apprehension, and tentatively knocked at Harry's door.  
  
There came the usual muffled reply:  
  
"Piss off whoever it is"  
  
"Harry, it's me, Hermione. Can I come in?"  
  
There was a long silence as Harry made up his mind to let her in or not, and then some shuffling and a muffled "ow fuck!" as Harry bumped into something and then the door was opened a crack and the shuffling went back into the room. Hermione ventured into the room slowly, and gave her eyes a chance to get accustomed to the gloom. And her nose to the smell. He had obviously not been washing for the two weeks and it stank to high heaven of God knew what.  
  
And there he sat, a hunched broken boy of fifteen, in a filthy sweater and jeans. His hair lay in a lank mop and his glasses lay askew, from where he had shoved them onto the bridge of his nose to see where he was going. He was barefoot and his big toe was bleeding from where he had collided with it hard against something. He looked the epitome of dejectedness and broken will.  
  
She had taken one look at him and could already feel the tears falling down her cheeks.  
  
"Oh Harry." was all she managed to say before she strode forward and enveloped him in a fierce hug. He stiffened for a moment or two, and then she felt his walls crumble as they both wept.  
  
'I think I'm coming to terms with Sirius being gone. It still hurts. I don't think it will ever stop, but at least I still have what is left. I have Remus to keep the memories of my parents alive. I have Hermione and Ron. There are still days where all I want to do is just lie down and never wake up again, but it comes less now. I'm just taking it day by day' 


End file.
